Monday, March 31, 2014

Why not attach a GPS to the debris?

It is with great sadness that till now, MHA370 is still not found and every passing day, it seems like we're getting further away from finding the reason why the plane ended up in the South Indian Ocean.

Currently there are both planes and ships scouring the area for the debris. It makes sense because planes travel faster than the ships and so the planes supposedly is able to narrow down the search area. However, what I did not understand is why did they not try to mark the debris with some form of GPS so that the debris can be tracked.

For example, isn't it possible to load some sort of raft into the airplanes and deploy those rafts whenever the debris is found, attaching some kind of GPS to it so that the ships can track the signals? The currents are forever moving the debris away from the location and all the satellite images can tell you is the previous known location. Why can't the planes mark the debris so that the ships can follow the trails? They have done it to wildlife to track them, why not to the debris?